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We’re Here! For Fear! Get Used To It!

What’s wrong with my life that I have time to watch more than 16 seconds of the Southern Republican Leadership Conference? What man with a functioning sex organ would pass his weekend wrestling with C-Span’s stuttering video stream so he could catch every word of Mike Pence’s call for “fast-acting tax relief” for the wealthy? I knew the Republican’s were trying to reinvent their brand, but I had no idea their new brand would be Rolaids.

That might be Â appropriate, however, considering how in love the Republicans are with bromides. So manyÂ hosannahsÂ offered up to God, the Declaration of Independence and our can-do spirit, and notÂ a single fucking idea about how to paddle the nation away from an onrushing waterfall. Â The conference was a Willy Wonka factory of catch phrases, buzz words and felatio for Israel, all totaling to one crystal clear agenda for the nation that will adrenalize Republicans straight through to November: We Want Our Power Back!

Â Â Â

Ron Paul: Strawman

All the Republican’s best gimmicks were in attendance at the 3 day New Orleans event; Bobby “The Mummy” Jindal, both black Republicans and, of course, Her Nibs. Everyone had a cock up the other’s ass as they delivered one retread of the Party’s favorite talking points after another. It was almost as if they were in competition to see who could deliver the weakest teleprompter joke before “Who Dat”-ing their way into the short term memories of the residents of that city which, under the vigilant gazeof our last president, became ground zero for a Roland Emmerich movie.

Many were the hollow pledges to repeal healthcare reform, and bountiful were the efforts to turn that “Party of No” albatross into a Republican badge of honor for sticking to their guns. Newt Gingrich promised a campaign of “2+2=4” signage, Â hoping that this subversiveÂ anti-communist Â tactic from Poland will resonate with Americans who are terrified at the prospect that Obama will attempt to try KSM in their living rooms.

But God and the Teabaggers were the real guests of honor. The Republicans could scarcely decide which deserved more ram’s blood. The Deity was all but promised aÂ ziggurat-sized throne of ivory and gold when the Republicans retake the nation, and why not? The Right has become completely unmoored since they realized there will be no money for them to play with the next time they have the White House, and considering the Faustian bargain they have made with lunatics they would usually not toss a rhetorical farthing to, we can expect that conservatives will be doubling down on religion and nationalism to justify their existence in the years to come.

Rather than try to bridge the gulf between themselves and the Democrats, theÂ RepublicansÂ declared their strategy loud and proud: the partisanship will grow and grow and fucking swallow the sunby November!! The Republican agenda is now exactly the inverse of Ronald Reagan’s, and that is why they worship at his altar. He is the last relic of an age before the great Thousand Year Winter Â swallowed their cause and scattered their tribe. The Republicans have no Cold War to win, no Greatest Generation to build an American Dream for, not a cent for another adventure overseas. Their rhetoric is an appeal to patriotism for patriotism’s sake, but to what end? Liz Cheney’s new McCarthyism? Newt Gingrich’s gay baiting? Are these the pillars of a Renaissance?

RNC Chairman Michael Steele came out swinging hard in his speech, but he swung at a lot of air. How does he reconcile his “Coming to America” melting pot grandeur with the conservatives’ xenophobic stance against immigration? When he tried boosting the crowd’sÂ capitalistÂ spirits by saying “America’s enemies have never been the wealthy or the strong”, was he admitting that her enemies are the poor and weak? Finally, some honesty from the GOP!

And then, like some Heavy MetalÂ centurion, Ron Paul rocked the house! You’ve got to hand it to this guy: he draws more genuine love and enthusiasm from young Republicans than Sarah Palin could if she whored Bristol out for nickel blowjobs. PaulÂ offered not a peck on the cheek for the theocrats and plutocrats who preceded him. He alone called bullshit on rumors of Obama’s socialism, denounced American empire and called Â for an end to the war, and was applauded for every word. And just to squeeze the Party’s teabags a little, he went and won the conference strawpoll for #1 conservative!

Well, not exactly. Mitt Romney edged Paul out by a single vote. Romney’s strategy was a stroke of genius: he didn’t show up. But he did Â allegedly spread a lot of influence around in the form of tchotchkes and the like. Should give you an idea about how he’ll run for president.

Ron doesn’t have dough. He shows up, and crowds cheer. Kids cheer. The Republicans will be the last people to understand what this means.

You seem to have lavished an awful lot of time and attention on this thing you didn’t want to watch.

I’d like to say it’s a relief to hear that things have gotten so stupid that there’s really no chance of seeing the GOP back in any kind of power in November or 2012, but after eight years of Bush I don’t know if things can ever plunge to that intellectual nadir.

I still think this is wishful thinking on your part YJ. You will never be able to get rid of Republicans or anyone else you don’t agree with. As much as you want them gone, they will always be around. I am glad we live in a nation that you are able to express your opinions and I respect them, but at the same time you seem overly biased against the Right as it were. You do realize our whole system needs a change, not just one group. The way you rant on and on you make conservatives sound like the Nazis and they are on their way to the jamboree. You kinda remind me of a reverse Glenn Beck, except you just have a website and don’t reach a 10th of the viewers that he has. You waste your time yelling about foolish people, yet don’t see that you have views that are just as extreme as the people you are trying to vilify. We all know the last 8 years have not been the best in our history, but what are you trying to do to change that? I hope for your sake you don’t think I’m going to just blindly agree with you just because I enjoy your work.

Of course. Which is why JY is exactly as bad as Glenn Beck for calling out the GOP’s fear mongering. In today’s world, calling attention to atrocious behavior is exactly as bad as the behavior itself. Using your own little blog to call out a douchebag with a nationally syndicated television program which he uses to call those that disagree with his ideology “a cancer on the nation” makes you precisely as bad as the douchebag in question. Which, as near as I can tell, is the only thing JY has done that could allow someone to say his views are “just as extreme as the people he’s trying to vilify”.

Or maybe you just didn’t like what he had to say. Which is also fine. Free speech and all that. But don’t try and pretend there’s any parity there 🙂

Exactly, which brings up the better question, why do I have to hear the same speech rehashed from Fox News or CNN? I come here to escape that bullshit, not drown in it. That was my entire point, this will never end. We get caught up in these “debates” when our energy could be directed somewhere else. I just don’t see how this is helping.

You wanna talk about not helping? Try telling someone that he’s wasting his energy posting his opinion on his own blog. Tell him he’s as bad as the nutjobs he’s calling out in his own little corner of the web. Then get into a pissing contest in the comments thread with a guy who gets in political arguments online when he’s bored.

Oh wait. 🙂

You don’t like the political commentary JY occasionally posts a couple of lines below his cartoon, don’t scroll down. And don’t look at most of his usual cartoons, for that matter. Deep Fried is a very politically outspoken comic, which is one of the reasons I like to read it.

But I don’t think that’s it. From the tone of your original post I get the impression that you do not agree with what Jason is saying, but can’t figure out anything wrong with it, so you instead attack the fact that he is voicing his opinion at all.

You are right about one thing tho. The debate over personal freedom and abuse of power will never end. At least, not if we’re lucky. We’ve made tremendous strides in the past century alone because of it.

I would argue that postman has neither the time nor the inclination to do a point by point counter of everything wrong with it. Like he said, we come to WB to escape the political bullshit, not wallow in it some more. Personally, I believe that if the time spent griping about conservatism had rather been devoted to cranking out more weapon brown strips, everyone would be a lot happier.

So because he couldn’t sum up his arguments or even just point out one or two key arguments he was right for telling Jason what he should and shouldn’t say on his own blog. To say nothing of calling him an extremist, and just generally insult him. Good to know.

And basically you feel that although Jason updates his free web comic regularly he should forgo other stuff he wants to discuss (and indeed, just ignore a big part of his site) to better accommodate your personal desires. Also good to know.

It’s Jason’s prerogative what goes on his own web page. Again, free speech and all that.

It’s not a matter of can’t so much as it is of won’t. No one really wants to get into a political pissing contest here, nonthreatening opinions notwithstanding. We could get into specific insulting

Basically I thought that JY’s time could be spent on something more productive and entertaining (which will bring him money) rather than inflammatory (which could alienate readers). Let’s be honest, he’s not going to comicon for his political prowess.

I calls ’em as I sees ’em. He’s a left-wing extremist. You surely can’t think that he’s a moderate by any stretch of the imagination. There’s helpful, rational, discourse, and then there’s, well, this. When you’re trying to achieve your desires, do you think you’ll change people’s minds by force, or rationality?

Being anti-the-nutjobs-currently-helming-the-GOP does not, by any stretch, make one an extremist. Nor does pointing out the ridiculousness of political figures standing up on stage calling a corporate-friendly moderate a socialist while winking about “reloading” and taking back the US. Unless of course one subscribes to their worldview, in which case anyone that disagrees with them is an extremist.

Funny how mockery is a sign of extremism, but encouraging people to bring loaded guns to public rallies doesn’t make the cut.

The term “extremist” is easy to throw around when no one expects it to be put into context. Let he who tosses the first charge of extremism back it up with facts, or admit that he is just angry at having his position mocked.

I took on the conservative celebrities in the above post without calling any of them “extremist”. I let their own words and policies speak for themselves, and if no one here is willing to rise up and defend what those self-anointed spokespeople for the right wing said, then I submit that my criticism stands.

I’m a registered Republican. (I’m really more of a Libertarian, except for not actually being insane. Registered Democrats with Green Party leanings probably understand all too well what I mean.)

Ron Paul is viewed as “too good to be true.” I’d guess that a majority of people who are registered Republicans, or at least a very substantial minority of them, actually agree with Ron Paul a lot more than they do with the official GOP party line. But somehow, even if we can’t quite put our fingers on it, we assume there must be a catch somewhere. Voting for Ron Paul feels kind of like voting for Santa Claus: if it worked, it would be great, but it can’t really work… can it?

That’s why the Republican party doesn’t take him seriously. They like having him around, because he gets people excited, but they mistakenly think they can co-opt that excitement and shove another cookie-cutter candidate down people’s throats instead.

One must never throw all their hopes behind one single personality in any party, and the fact that Ron Paul alone appears to occupy the Libertarian wing of the Republican party is largely the problem. It’s not that he’s too good to be true, it’s that the rest of his party doesn’t really want him in it. He is both forward looking and a throwback to a day when conservatives actually did believe in smaller government instead of a “permanent majority”.

The catch is that Republicans would actually have to practice what they preach if they were to get behind Ron Paul or a candidate like him. They’d have to expand their ideology and prove that they actually are interested in a smaller State, which they aren’t.

Well put, JY. The right has long since given up on coherence of message and has been relying on tribalism and fear mongering for decades. It’s why they can shriek about shrinking government when out of power and then turn around and do the exact opposite when ascendant.

That’s not to say Ron Paul is without his faults, but it explains why he doesn’t have any real traction in the party. It’s not his party; it’s Rush and Sarah’s.